She sat up very straight in her chair as she made this surprising assertion, and arranged the lace round her throat. Her attitude gave one the impression somehow of a rakish frigate clearing for action, and on the moment came the first shot. "I am a prude," said a low, bass voice at her elbow. Kit scarcely glanced round. "I know you are," she said, replying with a heavy broadside; "but then you are not a man." "That depends on what you mean by a man," said the voice again. The speaker was so hidden by the arms of the low chair in which he sat, that a knee, shin and foot, in a horizontal line on the invisible support of another knee, was all that could be seen of him. "I mean a human being who likes killing things," said Kit without hesitation. "I killed a wasp yesterday," said the voice; "at least, I think it died afterwards. Certainly I disabled it. Oh, I am sure I killed it." "Yes, and you remembered it to-day," said Lady Conybeare briskly. "You did not really kill it; it lives in your memory, and--and poisons your life. In time it will kill you. Do you suppose Jack remembers the grouse he killed yesterday?" "Oh, but Jack is like the oldest inhabitant," said Lady Haslemere. "He never remembers anything, just as the oldest inhabitant never remembers a flood or a thunderstorm or a famine at all like the one in question. That means they don't remember anything at all, for one famine is just like another; so are thunderstorms." Kit paused a moment, with her head on one side, regarding the speaker. "No; forgetfulness is not characteristic of Jack," she said, "any more than memory is. He remembers what he wants to remember, and forgets what he wants to forget. Now, it's just the opposite with me. I forget what I want to remember--horrid stories about my friends, for instance--and I remember the sort of thing I want to forget--like--like Sunday morning. Isn't it so, Jack?" A slightly amused laugh came from a man seated in the window, who was no other than the Jack in question, and, incidentally, Kit's husband. "It is true I make a point of forgetting unpleasant things," he said; "that is the only real use of having a memory decently under control. I forget Kit's milliner's bills----" "So do I, darling," said Kit with sudden affection. "No, you don't; you only remind me to forget them. I forget the names and faces of uninteresting people. I forget--no, I don't forget that----" "What don't you forget, Jack?" demanded Kit with some sharpness. "I don't believe it." "I don't forget that we've got to dine in the City at half-past seven. Why ever there was such an hour as half-past seven to put into a Christian clock I can't conjecture," he said in a tone of regretful wonder. "Well, if you forget unpleasant things, and you don't forget that, perhaps it will be pleasant." "I am quite certain it will be infernal," said Jack. "Go and dress, Kit." Lady Conybeare frowned impatiently.